Ganapamba

Ganapamba was a daughter of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva and a sister of Rudramadevi.¹² See Ganapatideva, Rudramadevi and the Kakatiyas. Her father gave her in marriage to Beta, a chief of the Kota family of Dhanyakataka (Amaravati), whose descent the inscription traces from Keta through Rudra.¹³

In E. Hultzsch’s translation, “king Ganapa affectionately bestowed on Beta, the ornament of princes, that glorious Ganapambika”.³ The inscription compares this gift to the giving of Parvati to Siva and of Lakshmi to Vishnu.³ See Kota Beta.

The Yenamadala inscription

Her inscription stands on a pillar at Yenamadala, in the Guntur taluk. Villagers once used it for grinding lime, and much of its Telugu part is now lost.¹ See the Yenamadala inscription of Ganapamba.

The Sanskrit verses tell what she did after Beta “had departed to the court of (Indra) the king of gods”.³⁴ She placed golden pinnacles on the shrine of Amaresvara at Sri-Dhanyankapura.³⁴ She built a temple of Siva called Betesvara after her husband and gave it the village of Benadevi.³⁴ She supported twelve Brahmans with houses and stipends (regular payments).³⁴ She also built a temple called Ganapesvara after her father, and granted it the village of Chintapadu.³⁴

The poem ends by praising her as one “whose hands are exclusively engaged in worshipping Hara (Siva)”.⁴ It says she “joyfully passes (her) days though standing (at the head) of a great kingdom”.⁴ Hultzsch found that the Amaresvara temple still stands at Amaravati, but that the Betesvara temple could no longer be traced.⁵

Ruler of the six-thousand country

The surviving Telugu part of the inscription gives the queen the male titles of her husband’s family.⁵ Among them is lord of the six-thousand country on the southern bank of the Krishna.⁵

In 1914 the Government Epigraphist noted inscriptions of Rudramadevi’s reign at Ipuru, in the Vinukonda taluk.² They record gifts to a temple of Alladanatha.² That temple was built about Saka 1179 (1257; Saka is an Indian way of counting years) for the merit of the Mahamandalesvara (great lord of a province) Kota Ganapamadevi.² The Epigraphist concluded that “Ganapama after the death of her husband did actually rule and assume the male titles of her family”.²

Gordon Mackenzie published a shortened translation of the Telugu part in 1883.⁶ It records that in “the year Saumya s.a. 1172” she gave golden vases to the Amaresvara temple.⁶ It also records that she founded a village called Ganapavarapadu for twelve Brahmans.⁶

Dates and disagreements

Hultzsch accepted the date Saumya, Saka 1172 (1249–50), from Mackenzie’s copy, although it is now lost from the stone.⁵ He concluded that she set up the pillar while her father was alive.⁵

The Epigraphist in 1914 found Beta still alive in Saka 1173 and dead by 1179.² He argued that the Yenamadala record, made after Beta’s death, could not be earlier than Saka 1173.²

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry cited a copper-plate grant by her of the village of Mogalutla, in the Palnadu.⁷⁸ He dated it to 1218.⁷⁸ It gave the village to a Brahman who performed the Gaya rites (funeral rites) for her husband.⁷⁸ So Parabrahma Sastry thought Beta had died before that year.⁷⁸

Mackenzie noted another tradition, in the Mackenzie manuscripts, which married Ganapatideva’s only daughter to a Chalukya prince instead.⁹ He suggested that her marriage to a “Jain kinglet of Dharanikota” was a political one.⁹ But he called the related tradition about Prataparudra “legendary”.⁹

Chilukuri Veerabhadra Rao (1912) called her Ganapatideva’s second daughter.¹⁰ He wrote that she ruled Dharanikota for a long time after Beta’s death.¹⁰

Footnotes

1. E. Hultzsch, “Yenamadala Inscription of Ganapamba”, Epigraphia Indica III (1895), p. 94 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Madras, for 1913–14 (G.O. No. 920, Public, 4 August 1914), Part II, para. 40, p. 104 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

3. Hultzsch, “Yenamadala Inscription of Ganapamba” (1895), translation, p. 102, verses 10–22 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

4. Hultzsch, “Yenamadala Inscription of Ganapamba” (1895), translation, p. 103, verses 24–25 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

5. Hultzsch, “Yenamadala Inscription of Ganapamba” (1895), p. 95 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

6. Mackenzie, Kistna District Manual (1883), Appendix to chapter I, p. 14 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 155. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 156. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kistna District (1883), p. 8 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Chilukuri Veerabhadra Rao, Andhrula Charitramu, Part II (1912), p. 240 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). In Telugu. ↩ ↩²